Selling Financial Freedom: William Keep on MLMs, Crypto, and the Politics of Deception – How promises of a better life become tools of undue influence—and why consumer protection matters

You want to help your family. Someone you trust offers an opportunity to earn extra income, work from home, and become financially independent. They introduce you to enthusiastic people who seem to share your values. Perhaps they attend your house of worship. Then you discover that making money requires recruiting other people. When the income fails to materialize, you are encouraged to buy more training, pay for coaching, and work on your lack of belief that you can become a millionaire by working part-time. By this point, questioning the opportunity may feel like questioning your friends, your faith, or your own ability to succeed. I have encountered these patterns for decades in my work with people harmed by commercial cults that do multi-level marketing (MLMs). Other varieties of commercial cults include trafficking and crypto. My guest on Cults, Culture & Coercion, Dr. William Keep, has spent decades examining the business practices behind them. I have known Bill for many years through our shared concern about multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes. A former business school dean at the College of New Jersey, he has helped attorneys and government investigators evaluate these operations. Our conversation explored how financial deception works, why it can be so difficult to recognize from inside, and what happens when businesses gain influence over the institutions meant to protect us.